Catholic Church to be TAXED in Italy

(So much for the idea that the Catholic church controls everything--It's the "International Bankers" who are determined to destroy Christianity. Then they'll use the formerly Christian nations to destroy Islam.)_________________________

Italy’s Catholic Church will be forced to pay taxes starting in 2013 after the EU pressured the country’s government to pass a controversial law stripping the Church of its historic property tax exemption.

­The Catholic Church in Italy is excluded from paying taxes on its land if at least a part of a Church property is used non-commercially – for instance, a chapel in a bed-and-breakfast.

"The regulatory framework will be definite by January 1, 2013 – the start of the fiscal year – and will fully respect the [European] Community law," Italian premier Mario Monti's government said in a statement on Tuesday.

The move could net Italy revenues of 500 million to 2 billion euros annually across the country, municipal government associations said. The extra income from previously exempt properties in Rome alone – including hotels, restaurants and sports centers – could reach 25.5 million euros a year, La Repubblica daily newspaper reported.

In his book, "Between Two Ages," Brzezinski wrote: "The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values."

Italy court blocks Church property tax 10/9/2012 [link to www.timesofmalta.com] Italy’s Council of State rejected a decree yesterday aimed at ending an historic tax exemption for the Catholic Church, reigniting a heated debate which is being closely followed by EU watchdogs.

In February, the government amended Italy’s property tax law to end the Church’s privileges amid rising calls for the Vatican to share in debt crisis sacrifices and in the face of intense scrutiny from the European Commission.

But the Council of State, Italy’s highest ranking court for administrative litigation, said on Monday it was rejecting the decree for being “too heterogeneous” and going “beyond the competences” of a tax law.

Italy Will Not Tax Church Property [link to www.therightperspective.org] 10/10/2012Italy’s highest court threw out a historic decree on Monday, ending the tax exempt status of property owned by the Catholic Church.

Rising calls from the European Commission and secular activists for the Vatican to share in Italy’s spiraling debt crisis forced the Italian government to amended the country’s property tax law last March, ending the Church’s tax-exempt privileges.

Italian Church Property Tax Thrown Out [link to www.tax-news.com] 10/9/2012The Italian State Council has thrown out a decree proposed by the Ministry of the Economy, which would have levied Italy’s new local property tax (IMU) on the Catholic Church’s commercial properties.

Italian minister backs tax on Church property [link to www.timesofmalta.com] 12/10/2011The Catholic Church should pay tax on commercial property it owns in Italy, an Italian government minister was quoted yesterday as saying amid rising calls for the Vatican to share in debt crisis sacrifices.

“The Church should pay the IMU for commercial activities,” said Cooperation and Integration Minister Andrea Riccardi, who is also the founder of the influential Catholic Community Sant’Egidio, Italian newspapers reported.

Mr Riccardi was referring to a municipal property tax that is part of draconian austerity measures put forward this week by Prime Minister Mario Monti, who has asked Italians to endure tax hikes to avoid the state going bankrupt.

The minister added, however, that there should be no “big confrontation” between Church and state on the issue of taxes, adding: “It’s better to verify on a case by case basis and intervene only if there has been bad faith.”

[link to wikileaks.org] 8/30/2011[The Community of] Sant'Egidio, on the other hand, is said to be sympathetic to the former mayor of Rome and current leader of the Italian left, Walter Veltroni

[link to ncronline.org] 6/1/2012 Nuzzi's book [His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI] also includes an encrypted 2011 cable from the papal embassy in Washington back to the Secretariat of State, relaying a request from Cardinal Francis George of Chicago that the Community of Sant'Egidio, a Rome-based movement active on peace and justice issues, be asked to withdraw an award it planned to bestow on Gov. Pat Quinn of Illinois for suppressing the death penalty.

According to the cable, George objected to Quinn's positions on abortion and gay marriage, including policies about serving same-sex couples, which effectively put Catholic adoption agencies in Illinois out of business.

The cable was signed by Monsignor Jean-Francois Lantheaume, the embassy's charge d'affairs. The full text is:

From: Washington To: Decryption Off., Decr. N. 300 Date of encryption: 03/11/2011 Date of decryption: 03/11/11 His Eminence Cardinal George, Francis, Archbishop of Chicago, has informed this pontifical embassy that the Community of Sant'Egidio has plans to present an award to the Governor of Illinois, Mr. Quinn, for suppressing the death penalty in that state. Attested that Mr. Quinn is of the Catholic faith, the bishops and Cardinal George retain that this recognition is inopportune for the following reasons:

•He promoted the law on homosexual marriage;•He is in favor of abortion;•He withdrew from the Catholic church the right to contract with federal agencies for the adoption of minors.

Cardinal George courteously requests an intervention with the authorities of the Community of Sant'Egidio so that the decision will be reconsidered. On the part of this embassy, a nulla osta [no objection] to what is proposed by His Eminence the Archbishop of Chicago. Lantheaume, charge d'affaires.

Americans tend to have a distorted view of the “new movements” in the Catholic church, seeing them as largely right-wing. That may be due in part to early critical books such as Gordon Urquhart’s 1999 The Pope’s Armada, but mostly it’s because the only outfits that have much of a profile in the States, such as Opus Dei and the Legionaries of Christ, do skew to the conservative end of the spectrum.

(Technically, Opus Dei is a personal prelature and the Legion is a religious order, so neither is a “movement.” Both, however, are 20th century creations, and thus part of the broad landscape of new ecclesial realities.)

Yet in Europe, and certainly in Italy, Catholics don’t have the same tendency to associate the movements with a particular ideology, because the galaxy of well-known movements is considerably more diverse. The Community of Sant’Egidio, arguably the movement with the single highest public profile in Italy, illustrates the point.

Launched in 1968 by a layman named Andrea Riccardi, who is now the Minister for International Cooperation in the government of Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, Sant’Egidio was designed for progressive youth inspired by the revolutionary fervor of ’68 who nevertheless wanted to stay Catholic. Today, it claims 60,000 members in 73 countries.

By fighting poverty, empowering civil society, and preaching understanding, organizations like the Community of Sant'Egidio remind us of our power to create a better world for ourselves and our children when we do God's work here on earth. These efforts transcend borders, lift up communities, and extend the hand of friendship to those in need.

As you continue striving for peace and global solidarity, I wish you all the best.

The Yearly Cost of Religious Tax Exemptions [in America]: $71,000,000,000 [link to www.patheos.com] 6/16/2012We know churches get tax exemptions, but how much money does that actually come out to?

University of Tampa professor Ryan T. Cragun along with students Stephanie Yeager and Desmond Vega ran some calculations and figured out a number:

While some people may be bothered by the fact that there are pastors who live in multimillion dollar homes, this is old news to most. But here is what should bother you about these expensive homes: You are helping to pay for them! You pay for them indirectly, the same way local, state, and federal governments in the United States subsidize religion — to the tune of about $71 billion every year.

The Catholic Church should pay tax on commercial property it owns in Italy, an Italian government minister was quoted yesterday as saying amid rising calls for the Vatican to share in debt crisis sacrifices.

“The Church should pay the IMU for commercial activities,” said Cooperation and Integration Minister Andrea Riccardi, who is also the founder of the influential Catholic Community Sant’Egidio, Italian newspapers reported.

After several years of scandal in which the Catholic Church has faced allegations of financial impropriety, paedophile priests and rumours of plots to kill the Pope, the Vatican is now facing a new €600m-a-year tax bill as Rome seeks to head off European Commission censure over controversial property tax breaks enjoyed by the Church.

As the EC heads closer to officially condemning the fiscal perks enjoyed by the Catholic Church and introduced by the Berlusconi administration, Prime Minister Mario Monti has written to the Competition Commissioner, Joaquin Almunia, saying that the Vatican will resume property tax, or Ici, payments.

Mr Almunia said in 2010 that the exemption amounted to state aid that might breach EU competition law. A parliamentary proposal by the Italian Radicals party last August to repeal the exemption, with a successful petition on Facebook, upped the pressure. A spokesman for Mr Almunia appeared to give the thumbs-up yesterday: "It is a proposal that constitutes a significant progress on the issue and I hope will be implemented," he said.

For centuries, the church has enjoyed tax breaks and special privileges that have helped them become the ridiculously wealthy organization they are today. But as Europe's nations, cities, towns, and the general public struggle through the economic downturn, more and more people have called for an end to the special treatment.

To be clear, the taxes would not be levied on actual Churches, but rather, on their vast property holdings and commercial businesses.

In effect, anything the church owns or operates that constitutes a "non-religious" purpose, reports the Washington Post. The revenue generated would be substantial, one estimate putting the taxation figure at roughly 3 billion euros ($4 billion) just in Spain.

Aside from Spain, Italy, Ireland, and Britain have also begun efforts to tap into the Church's piggy bank, or simply stop putting money into it. New laws have mostly been on the municipal, city, and town wide level like in Spain's coastal city of Buenavista del Norte, where the mayor is trying to collect 6,000 euros ($7,850) from the church for a banana farm and rental villa they own.

worship is a concept,and we are all spirit that existed before the concepts..therefore as spirit we should be enjoying the show on the worlds stage and not worried about anything...even to be absent from the body is to be present in spirit...so many traps the creation and creations lay to try to hold us here,lol..

How unfortunate for some rulers when men,women,and children continue to think... Keep repeating the lies loud enough and long enough and just maybe the people will start to believe the lies again and good luck with that...finding your energy open until mars becomes raging aries...

(So much for the idea that the Catholic church controls everything--It's the "International Bankers" who are determined to destroy Christianity. Then they'll use the formerly Christian nations to destroy Islam.)_________________________

Italy’s Catholic Church will be forced to pay taxes starting in 2013 after the EU pressured the country’s government to pass a controversial law stripping the Church of its historic property tax exemption.

­The Catholic Church in Italy is excluded from paying taxes on its land if at least a part of a Church property is used non-commercially – for instance, a chapel in a bed-and-breakfast.

"The regulatory framework will be definite by January 1, 2013 – the start of the fiscal year – and will fully respect the [European] Community law," Italian premier Mario Monti's government said in a statement on Tuesday.

The move could net Italy revenues of 500 million to 2 billion euros annually across the country, municipal government associations said. The extra income from previously exempt properties in Rome alone – including hotels, restaurants and sports centers – could reach 25.5 million euros a year, La Repubblica daily newspaper reported.

(So much for the idea that the Catholic church controls everything--It's the "International Bankers" who are determined to destroy Christianity. Then they'll use the formerly Christian nations to destroy Islam.)_________________________

Italy’s Catholic Church will be forced to pay taxes starting in 2013 after the EU pressured the country’s government to pass a controversial law stripping the Church of its historic property tax exemption.

­The Catholic Church in Italy is excluded from paying taxes on its land if at least a part of a Church property is used non-commercially – for instance, a chapel in a bed-and-breakfast.

"The regulatory framework will be definite by January 1, 2013 – the start of the fiscal year – and will fully respect the [European] Community law," Italian premier Mario Monti's government said in a statement on Tuesday.

The move could net Italy revenues of 500 million to 2 billion euros annually across the country, municipal government associations said. The extra income from previously exempt properties in Rome alone – including hotels, restaurants and sports centers – could reach 25.5 million euros a year, La Repubblica daily newspaper reported.

Quoting: MuzzleBreak

lol. The pope has to pony up...

Quoting: Tanarus

whats a pope? that's just an ark filled with the same spirit playing a created role...he's no "holier" than anyone else...we all have equal measure of spirit,that's why to use a created term it would be understood as a co-creator spirit we all share equally..

How unfortunate for some rulers when men,women,and children continue to think... Keep repeating the lies loud enough and long enough and just maybe the people will start to believe the lies again and good luck with that...finding your energy open until mars becomes raging aries...